“If the hand shake goes it would be a sad day for society. As for the comments about architecture … Modern architecture has a lot to answer for. No eaves, open spaces that are harder to heat … Society had building right 100 years ago but (we) turned our backs on it.”
Tom too:
“I’d miss the handshake. But I’ll be wild with joy to see the end of the infernal hugging disease.”
Not John:
“Eight hugs per day and you live a decade longer, Tom. Or so someone said, BC (Before coronavirus). Maybe we should all practise our courtly bows at six paces.”
Rog reckoned:
“Bring my back the outdoor picture theatre! Winton in outback Queensland has got one. The bonus being that you will never need a roof as according to so called experts it is never going to rain again.”
Peter’s prediction:
“I guess this piece was tongue in cheek, but realistically, when this thing is over it will be like the start of the Sydney marathon. It will be on for young and old. Can’t wait.”
Another Peter:
“The only thing I know is that 99.9pc of speculation now about what will happen post-Covid will prove to be wrong … speculations about the future are really nostalgia for one’s parents’ long-gone world.”
Roslyn recalled:
“The drive-in was all about dating when I was a teenager. Married with children, it meant not having to organise a babysitter. My two little ones slept in the back of the station wagon in sleeping bags, leaving their parents to enjoy the movie in peace. And, no, their conceptions were not the result of romantic trysts at the drive-in.”
Kevin was copacetic:
“Drive-ins. What an excellent thought! And as for this distancing business when travelling, maybe airlines will have to go back to the days when they provided legroom for those of us who are taller than a hobbit.”
John jested:
“As Norman Gunston asked, ‘Without the drive-ins of today, where will the youth of tomorrow be?’”
Chris’ comeback:
“In the home theatre watching Netflix.”
Chris continued:
“ ‘Australia’s medical supremo, Brendan Murphy, predicts the crisis will change human behaviour for good’. Rubbish. Westerners have memories like goldfish. Once the virus has been 100pc controlled with or without a vaccine it will be back to 2019 as though nothing happened. The Swedes have already trialled a drug that stops the virus killing people. The Brits have tried it and it works.
“This will be over by August and forgotten. Have a look at the disastrous toll of WW1 1914-18 and the Spanish flu in 1918-20. The western world in the 1920s went into party mode as though nothing had ever happened. Many historians say it was the best decade of the 20th century to be alive.”
Marvellous, said Margaret:
“Mr Slattery, that is a delicious piece of writing. Thank you.”
Vincent was vague:
“I don’t remember waitstaff and rollerskates at the Broadmeadows drive in.”
Jaded, Jennifer?
“ ‘The planet gets a breather’ is one of the most inane, meaningless and thoughtless statements that has turned into a cliche, and I never want to see or hear it again.”
Alison imagined:
“Maybe the long-lost family holiday by car to Queensland will make a comeback?”
Likes from Lynne H:
‘One good thing about isolation is that some writers are pulling together these tasty little stories. Thank you Luke Slattery. I enjoyed immensely. Way more enjoyable than reading about health workers being spat on in another publication.”
Greg agreed:
“Loved his reference to Proust, having just read Clive James’ essay on that endless work.”
Gavin got misty:
“Yes! The drive in movies, consigned to history mostly everywhere, could have a resurgence of sorts in post-COVID Australia. Imagine those starry eyed loved up couples jockeying for space to — well do what they want to do and, of course, the families cramming in to see the latest pic while squabbling over who sits where and what choc top flavour is wanted at the kiosk and, of course, the teens, 3 in the car, 3 in the boot coming to see their latest pic! Takes one back doesn’t it?”
Advice from Alpal:
“Bucket seats so are not suitable for the drive in. Back seats are better but really the ideal drive-in vehicle is the shaggin’ wagon or as Holden put out, the Sandman.”
–
Caroline Overington concluded that you can’t argue with a COVID conspiracist when your Facebook feed is full of them. Right said Richard:
“The pop psychologist in me surmises that in many/most people there is an innate need to believe in some transcendental good force and an opposite bad force. In times past this would have been God, or many gods on the one side and the devil(s) with attendant demons on the other. Now that few give credence to God he’s been replaced by Aunty Gaia. For Satan and his demons we have to make do with vaccination, big pharma, the military-industrial complex and Bill Gates.”
Duncan’s dilemma:
“The funniest thing about conspiracy nutters is that it doesn’t matter to them how you respond. Engage with them? Yay, we’re being taken seriously! Ignore them? See, that proves you don’t have an answer!”
Gr was grave:
“ ‘The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe in anything.’ Gilbert K. Chesterton.” sums it up nicely.
Paul’s point:
“The remark about the government complaining about the spread of misinformation is brilliant. It’s a huge industry in Canberra employing massive resources.”
Michael mused:
“The most dangerous and perplexing phenomena about extremism is the capacity for normal and functional human beings to believe the most insane and dangerous beliefs.”
Not so crazy, said Coral:
“There are some doozies there, but Carolyn please don’t put the strong possibility this virus escaped from a lab at the same level.
“Virologists have been splicing together viruses (and how to do it without leaving a trace) for decades and exploring virus ‘gain of function’ for years. Just look up the published research. Look up the research that was going on in that very lab — dangerous ‘gain of function studies’ on bat coronaviruses, both in test tube and in live animals. The NIH in the US only dropped the funding on April 24.
“The natural explanation involves a bat meeting up with a (very rare) pangolin to create a blended virus, which gained a polybasic furin site from something else before making the jump into humans. It’s not impossible … but neither is the much simpler theory of a lab accident.”
Lindsay went deep:
“There is misinformation on both sides. The model that UK imperial college used to determine that 500,000 would die was unfit for purpose. It turns out that the model, a computer program, was developed 13 years ago by people who had no knowledge of programming.
“It started off as just a few hundred lines of code and ended up with 15000 lines in what was called a single line of code. Essentially this means that the entire code is wrapped in a conditional statement like “if”, multiple “elseif” statements and within in these were hundreds of other conditional statements.
“This type of code becomes impossible to manage. As a former FORTRAN programmer, I have tried to fix problems in a 2000 line program and it takes weeks to disentangle the statements and insert procedures and comment the code.
“Anyway, when pressed for the source code, imperial college refused and sent the code to Microsoft to try and fix and one of the programmers said that the program was riddled with bugs, had no code commenting and produced different results everytime it was run.
“Incredibly, Boris Johnson referred to the 500,000 people saved just the other day.”
Judy’s judgment:
“You can fool some of the people all the time. You can fall all of the people some of the time. You can’t fool some of the people any time.”
–
Beijing’s beef and barley blitzkrieg is pure tit for tat and a slap in response to Canberra’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins and spread of COVID-19 and any suggestion to the contrary is pure baloney, suggested Greg Sheridan. Robert recommended:
“We as Australians have a duty now to buy Australian-made products only, if available.
We have to stop buying Chinese (read CCP) made products and services, every dollar a Chinese company makes is used to steal more islands, build more military hardware and infiltrate in our Universities, government and businesses.
“Please note, quality will be remembered, price will be forgotten. Buy products and services from our strategic partners.”
Elizabeth agreed:
“The West has danced with the devil for over 40 yrs and has taken advantage of China’s cheap labour costs to boost western profits but at the same time it has established China as a major economic power. The CCP must laugh at the West for believing that China over the last 40 years should be encouraged as they would eventually become more westernised.”
Bad said BarryF:
“We have put ourselves into this position and it is going to be a very hard road to regain our complete independence and sovereignty. Yes it’s that bad. We gorged on borrowed money. We ran down our cheap power generation and turned to imported infrastructure for intermittent power generators. We outsourced most of our manufacturing.
“We sold water rights to foreign entities. We allowed too much of our important industries to be controlled by overseas companies which themselves are controlled by CCP (examples are 85pc of our dairy industry and domestic travel controlled by one foreign company which together with another foreign company has 40pc of Virgin Airlines and owns the biggest single player in the airport ground services). This is the time for nation building like our forebears did after WWII.”
Rohan’s response:
“Appeasement never works. Ever. Time we restarted manufacturing, adopted a policy of anywhere but China. India is the sleeping giant, how about we stop being lazy with all our eggs in one basket and start working with India, Vietnam, Indonesia etc.”
Gavin’s goals:
“We must not buckle to this blatant intimidation. Much can be done — it is not a one-way street. We know a lot of enterprising individuals post Australian-made baby formula to China. Most likely without export licences. Enact measures to stop this now.
“If they are not already increasing efforts to establish formal trade treaties with other nations, they need to do so. India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, UK & USA are all viable trading partners.
“Domestically, probably the most important thing to do is to be much more selective over what we buy. I have removed products made in China, or by Chinese owned companies, from my shopping list. If we all do that, it WILL make a difference. As I am sure people all around the world are as angry as we are. China is the world’s manufacturer? Not if people won’t buy its products.
“And that would be an action even CCP could not stop, but which would be noticed fairly quickly in China. At which point CCP’s focus will doubtless return to keeping its own population either satisfied or suppressed.”
Last word to Steven:
“I’m no economist, however the Chinese seem addicted to our very high quality products from wine to wheat and everything in between. As such, why are we not dictating the terms to them?
“Surely our products are desired by other nations of the world with cash to buy them. I wonder if it is just easier for our leaders to sell most variety to China because one customer is easier than 20. If China play up, don’t sell them our meat or wine or ore, let them see how far they get then.
“India, Europe, Asia, Africa have growing economies, are they not populated and cashed up? Lastly, why aren’t we democratic ‘5 eyes’ nations like the US or UK trading more between ourselves to help out each other?”
–
Each Friday the cream of your views on the news rises and we honour the voices that made the debate great. To boost your chances of being featured, please be pertinent, pithy and preferably make a point. Solid arguments, original ideas, sparkling prose, rapier wit and rhetorical flourishes may count in your favour. Civility is essential. Comments may be edited for length.
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Welcome to the column where you provide the content. Luke Slattery waxed lyrical about life after coronavirus, a kinder, gentler world with drive-in movies, Sunday drives and Proust, but no hugs or handshakes. David was downcast: